This Easy Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe is helping me start the New Year saving money and stretching the budget.

It’s one of my great laundry hacks.

Part of my New Year Resolution is to stretch our budget further.

We have been making our own dishwasher detergent.

There is a lot of laundry at my house, and I decided I was tired of washing my money down the drain.

Today, the kiddos and I started the New Year off making homemade laundry soap.

After some trial and error, we ended up with 16 quarts of laundry sauce–each quart does 64 loads.

There was some time involved, but the kiddos enjoyed the first ten quarts and stuck it out until all 16 were complete.

I have less than $2.00 invested in each quart jar.

Not bad for 64 loads of laundry.

A few hours this morning, I have enough laundry sauce to wash 1,024 loads of laundry, and I spent $20.74.

One load of laundry takes just one TABLESPOON of laundry sauce.

The recipe will make 2 quarts.

How to Make Your Own Laundry Detergent

Ready to save money and learn how to make your own laundry detergent?

This guide will walk you step-by-step through the process.

The reward will be an amazing laundry detergent that cleans clothing and saves you money!

It works as an eco-friendly laundry detergent.

Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe Ingredients:

1 bar Fels Naptha

1 cup 20 Mule Team Borax

1 cup Arm & Hammer Washing Soda (Not Baking Soda)

4 cups water

I purchased all of these ingredients at Wal-Mart on the aisle with all the laundry detergent and fabric softener.

NOTE: Amazon has a Homemade Laundry Detergent kit that includes everything but the water.

Homemade Laundry Detergent Recipe Directions:

Note: Follow this recipe exactly, or the sauce won’t set, or it will be grainy.

1.) Place four cups of water in a large saucepan, and over high heat, bring to a boil.

2.) While waiting for a boil, combine the borax with the washing soda until well mixed and set aside.

3.) Grate the Fels Naptha. I found the easiest way to do this was to slice the bar into small cubes and then put in my food processor, chopping until pea size. If you’re ambitious, try grating it with a cheese grater.

4.) Your water should be at a heavy boil. Reduce heat from high to medium-high and add the grated Fels Naptha soap to the water to the pan, stirring constantly.

5.) Get your stirring arm on and set the timer for 15 minutes, and stir while the mixture has a rolling boil until the Fels Naptha is completely dissolved. You don’t want it to “rise” in the pan or foam heavily…you may need to turn the heat up or down depending on your stove.

6.) Once the Fels Naptha hs completely dissolved, remove the pan from heat and add the borax and washing soda, constantly stirring until the powders are completely dissolved. Ours took about 7 minutes. You want to stir it until you can’t feel the grainy texture in the bottom of the pan.

7.) Once the powder is completely dissolved, pour the liquid equally into two 1-quart mason jars. Don’t vary the jar size; the mixture will not be set.

8.) Add just enough boiling water to bring the contents of the mason jar up to the rounded part of the jar (or shoulders). There should be about 1.5″ of empty in the jar.

9.) Place the lid on the jars, turn them upside down, and let them sit for 4-5 hours. The soap will separate into layers, and small crystals may form at the bottom; by having the jar upside down, you won’t have to scrape the crystals off the bottom of the jar!

10.) It will be the easiest if you have a blender that works with a regular mouth mason jar. I didn’t, so I just dumped my jar contents into my blender, scraped it well, and then whipped the mixture until it was fluffy and combined.

11.) Pour back in the jar, or add the lid (depending on which method you used above in #10) and put on the shelf.

12.) Add 1 Tablespoon to a load of laundry. Do NOT add any other detergent. Also, don’t add this to the “detergent compartment”…you want to put it in with the dirty clothes directly.